Former Disney Channel star Bella Thorne has revealed in an interview on Emily Ratajkowski’s podcast that when she was just ten years old, a Hollywood director sexualized her, accusing her of trying to “flirt” with him.
The director in question was not identified.
“I had a director give me feedback once and I was ten and they call the casting director, who calls my agent, and my agent calls my mom. And they’re like, ‘So she’s not moving forward because the director felt like she was flirting with him and it made him really uncomfortable,’” Thorne recalled.
“What the fuck are you talking about, man? I don’t give a fuck what the fuck I said. I don’t care if I said ‘Eat my pussy right now.’ She is ten years old. Why ever would you think that? Why?” Thorne added.
“You’re in a director session, you can’t really like say or do much. You do the scene, you say hello, you walk out — there’s no time to like, ‘Let me go sit on your lap or like, make you feel uncomfortable.’”
Ratajkowski replied: “Putting it on a 10 year old child and making it like they made an adult man uncomfortable is insane. And then that was relayed to a casting director who was happy to relay that to your mom. Like if you need a more fucked up story about Hollywood and like pedophilia and the sexualization of children, like I don’t know that there is one.”
Former Disney star Bella Thorne has claimed that she was subjected to sexual abuse and physical violence during her time as a child actor.
The actress and singer said that she was between the ages of six to 14 when the alleged abuse occurred, and that those around her at the time did not do anything to help.
Thorne also revealed that Disney came under pressure to fire her when she was 14 after a photo of her wearing a bikini on the beach was leaked.